Ives Quartet
Performance ReviewMercury News
Wednesday, May 4, 2005Performers convey composer's fertile imagination
By Richard Scheinin
The road to Le Petit Trianon, the cozy concert hall in downtown San Jose, was blocked Sunday. It was a challenge to get there on time for one of the music season's big events: an American premiere performance of Peter Maxwell Davies' ``Hymn to Artemis Locheia.''It's not often that Trianon plays host to new music by one of the world's most famous composers -- and it's not often that police shut down half the neighborhood, as they did Sunday evening to control Cinco de Mayo traffic.
Not only that, but Trianon's stretch of North Fifth Street -- torn apart for construction related to the new City Hall up the block -- looked like a war zone, devoid of on-street parking. ``You have to suffer for your art around here,'' Trianon's owner, Keith Watt, joked to loyal patrons in the lobby.
But Sunday night's program was worth suffering for -- big time.
The Ives Quartet gave startlingly vivid performances of works by Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Joined by clarinetist Dimitri Ashkenazy (son of pianist-conductor Vladimir), the group also gave one of its three weekend performances of Maxwell Davies' new clarinet quintet, an engrossing, protean piece named for an ancient Greek fertility goddess.
The five musicians seemed to have climbed into an isolation tank to bond around ``Artemis''; the performance was that in tune with the music's mysterious processes.
The piece was composed last year when a music-loving geneticist in London, Ian Craft, commissioned Maxwell Davies. The composer toured Craft's fertility clinic, observing embryo implantations and talking to prospective parents -- and out popped ``Artemis.''In August, Ashkenazy and the Brodsky Quartet gave the piece its world premiere at Switzerland's Lucerne Festival. When the clarinetist, who lives in Lucerne, discussed an American premiere with the composer, he recommended bringing aboard his friends in the Santa Clara County-based Ives Quartet, with whom he played and recorded the Brahms' Clarinet Quintet two years ago.
Before Sunday's performance, Ashkenazy told the audience that certain motifs recur and are reworked throughout ``Artemis.'' Then he asked the string quartet to demonstrate these musical ``cells.''
The clarinetist also told fertility jokes -- the group refers to long rests in the score as ``pregnant pauses'' -- and explained that ``Artemis,'' which consists of one 30-minute movement, actually contains four hidden movements that unfold along quasi-classical lines.
Listening was almost like ``watching'' all sorts of secret goings-on: The music seemed pregnant, growing, bubbling. Something was in the oven and the musicians were acting as surrogates for Artemis' mysterious ways.
Let's take a stab at unraveling some hidden symbolism.
Near the start of the piece, there were deep, rasping sounds from cello and viola; forgive the stereotyping, but it sounded ``masculine.''
Then came the two violins, with stern but lilting, high-flying lines -- ``feminine'' sounds, perhaps?
I couldn't help thinking that a musical meeting of sperm and egg had just occurred. Because now, after all four strings entwined in low bracing chords, the murmuring, slightly growly sound of the clarinet emerged from down under -- new life?
Who knows what Maxwell Davies intended? Many of his works are composed through a process of ``constant transformation,'' his term for the organic building of little musical units into larger ones, or the devolving of big units into smaller cells.
Perhaps ``Artemis'' is simply one more working-out by Maxwell Davies of this compositional technique -- and the work's title, conjuring creation and birth, is only an excuse for another experiment.But it sure sounded like fertility music: gurgling and whistling, growing thick, then dissolving, struggling, occasionally spurting melody.
Often brooding and night-flight quiet, it had its moments of elation, too. About 23 minutes into the piece, Ashkenazy played wild, squiggly, wiggly lines -- he is a remarkable player, and not a grandstander -- and then coiling notes upwardly through the almost-viscous textures of the strings.
Moments later, as the music concluded, the clarinet snuck up to skyscraper-high notes -- off the charts -- and cried out with the other four instruments. Was this birth?
It was fascinating hearing ``Artemis,'' which Ashkenazy will record this summer with the Brodsky Quartet. (The recording will be available for purchase on Maxwell Davies' Web site: http://music.maxopus.com).It also was fascinating, and deeply moving, to hear the Ives Quartet perform Beethoven's String Quartet in F Major, Opus 135, and Mendelssohn's String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Opus 13. These four musicians are really in touch with the music, which sounded almost alarmingly alive: songful, surging, very special. One of the Bay Area's outstanding string quartets, the Ives Quartet should be heard by more famous ensembles who might learn a trick or two about playing music with precision, soul, and a sense of newness.
By the way, it is possible to navigate the traffic situation around Trianon, and if you call (408) 995-5400 and press ``0'', people at the hall can advise you where to park. Attendants usually are on hand to provide further assistance.
Contact Richard Scheinin at rscheinin@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5069.
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